This invention relates to novel peptide antibiotics and to their use as antimicrobial and antitumor agents. The present invention also relates to methods for the preparation of these antibiotics, intermediates therefor and to the novel microorganism used in their preparation by fermentation.
Various microorganisms have been isolated from soil samples, cultured in a synthetic medium and found to elaborate products having antibiotic activity. We have isolated a novel bacterium species, K481-B101, from a soil sample collected near the Parthenon in Athens, Greece, and discovered it to produce a mixture of peptides having antibiotic activity.
It is a primary object of this invention to provide novel peptide antibiotics particularly useful as antifungal and antitumor agents.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide convenient methods for the preparation of these antibiotics.
And, it is a further object of the invention to provide pharmaceutical compositions containing those antibiotics.